Last night was time to clean out the wine fridge of old wines that probably shouldn’t have aged. After a night of decanting in the bottle, we’ve cracked it open for a taste. This is a 1997 Mystic Cliffs California Cabernet Sauvignon that seems to have aged fairly well since I bought it in 1999, the bottle doesn’t have any sediment stuck to the edges, which is much unlike my “Two Buck Chuck” which also had aged too long.
The nose of this wine is still fairly strong with some great sour cherries, dark ripe plums and black currant. Definitely has the “California cab” bouquet rising from the glass, very fruity and rich. The color is much different than I would have expected giving me a dark brown much like a really dark brandy with hue’s of plum coloring.
The taste of the Mystic Cliffs is medium bodied and smooth on the palate with a slightly tannic bite on the back end of your tongue. The fruit is very strong and powerful in your mouth with a very weak to non-existent mid-palate transition and a lingering sour raspberry plum finish. The nose resembles much of what this drink offers on the palate, not exactly the most exciting for a 12-year old red.
The most important fact, the wine lasted 12-years without becoming weak and extra flabby. No doubt the taste, today, is much like the taste from roughly 10-years ago. So, if you’ve got a bottle like this in your cellar, it’s probably time to pull it out and drink it.
While there is nothing exactly exiting about the 1997 Mystic Cliffs it has lasted the long haul and shows us a variety of black fruits.
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